Author: Todd Bishop
That last Reed tweak: one further
Going one further with that last Reed tweak in 3/4, in which we played alternating triplets, beginning every measure with the right hand. Normally with alternating triplets, every second measure would start with the left hand, […]
Transcription: Roy Haynes – Bad News Blues – 02
Part 2 of Roy Haynes playing Bad News Blues on his record Cracklin’. This is Ron Matthews’s piano solo, starting at 1:51— four choruses, 48 bars. Things like this are a little bit of an […]
Transcription: Roy Haynes – Bad News Blues – 01
Roy Haynes playing Bad News Blues, from his album Cracklin’. We’ll be seeing more of this one, there’s a lot of interest in this recording. Playing a tune like this some people might simplify and […]
Know your tempos: Workin’ / Steamin’ / Cookin’ / Relaxin’
You can buy them all in one collection now. Hey, we haven’t done one of these in a while. All the tempos from four very famous Miles Davis records, with his very famous quintet from the […]
Groove o’ the day: Ed Blackwell – Love
Here’s a fast 6/4 Afro type of groove from Ed Blackwell, on the track Love, from a duo record with Wadada Leo Smith, The Blue Mountain’s Sun Drummer. There’s no tune, it’s just free blowing […]
Daily best music in the world: early Weather Report
I have a lot of writing projects going right now, and seem to be unable to finish any of them, so let’s listen. Here’s Alphonse Mouzon playing on the first Weather Report album, doing what […]
Very occasional quote of the day: artificial excitement
“I think there’s a tendency to overplay with most young drummers. Rushing is common in trying to force things to swing by playing on top a little bit. If things weren’t swinging by forcing it […]
Finessing Reed funk phrases
A baseline thing to do with Reed funk methods is to practice in two measure phrases. For example: one measure cut time funk* / one measure RH lead**. * – CUT TIME FUNK: Reading from […]
CYMBALISTIC: 20 BLOW-OUT
5/26 UPDATE: OK gang, the special is OVER, but, happily, the cymbals are still a tremendous bargain considering that a) they’re great, b) you’ll use them forever, c) they’re not that expensive to begin with! By […]
Transcription: Max fours
I am not screwing around people, this is now an ALL Max Roach site. Here he is trading fours on Minor Meeting, from the record Sonny Clark Trio, from 1960— there’s another record by that […]
Reed tweak: alternating triplets in 3
This came up while I was practicing out of my book, Syncopation in 3. An extremely ordinary practice system used with Syncopation is to a) swing the top line rhythm, b) fill in the remaining […]